Calcium Snowstorm

[randoma]

So, last night, my ACjr decided that it would be fun to leave my dosing pumps on all night, instead of on for 1 minute every ~2 hours... I don't know exactly how long the pumps were on for, but it looks like it added about 1/2 gallon of Randy's Two-Part to the tank over a span of about 8 hours.

Needless to say, this morning the tank was completely opaque. It is now much better (think heavy fog instead of milk), but there's white calcium precipitate all over everything.

Googling calcium snowstorm gets a number of hits, but only two that actually talk about what to do about it. One article from Randy Holmes-Farley says that as long as pH is within reason (~8.15) don't do anything, just let the water clear on its own. Unfortunately the only other relevant information is from Anthony Calfo, who says do some large water changes immediately!

I'm running carbon and I'm going to setup a what-cha-ma-callit external filter thing. It is a Magnum 350 but I can't remember what you call them! And, so far everything in the tank looks reasonably healthy, although I can't actually see the things towards the back of the tank or any of the LPS..

So, two questions, which are kind of the same question - 1) is there any good way to remove the precipitate from the rocks and everything? I blew off all the coral I could reach with a turkey baster. Unfortunately, due to the fact that the tank (as anyone who has seen it will attest) is completely full, and not well organized, it is extremely difficult for me to siphon stuff off the rocks directly without taking everything out...

2) Will the precipitate dissolve back into the water and, if it does, what effect should that have on my efforts to keep KH/Ca balanced?

 

[randoma]

Also, the ACjr had been acting strange for a couple days before - it had started turning the pumps on every 30 minutes or so. I turned it off and back on and it appeared working correctly throughout the day yesterday until I went to bed around 1am..

So, if anyone has any ideas on what would make an ACjr go psycho, I'm all ears...

Everything else that it controls - lights, heat, fan, temp/ph readings all seem correct.

Also, this morning, I first tried to turn the pumps off through the 'Manual Control' on the ACjr, but they didn't turn off. Ultimately I pulled the plug on the pumps.... Unfortunately I didn't note, at the time, if the ACjr 'thought' the pumps were off.

 

[Kevin McG]

Same exact thing was happening with my ACJR a couple of months back but it was making my actincs turn off/on as well as my pumps. I updated the firmware on my ACJR with no results. What I ended up doing was move the controller part of the ACJR away from some outlets that were right next to it and haven't had any issues as of yet{knock on wood}.

Not sure why there would be interference but it fixed the issue.

 

[RayD]

I had an issue with my ACII resetting itself. I contacted Neptune and Curt told me that power surges can reak havoc on these devies.

Make sure you have the unit plugged into a surge protector. I pluged mine into an APC 1500 and it's been perfect ever since.

 

[randoma]

No one has any thoughts on how to get rid of the precipitate or what might happen to it? I guess bashing/defending RHF (who as far as I can tell has only done good things for this hobby) takes precedence over everything else!

At any rate, I think the problem might be with my power supply for the pumps not the ACjr, although I don't exactly understand it. When I have the pumps plugged in, even though the ACjr thinks the outlet is off, the pumps are ON. When I plug a light, (regular flourescent clamp light) the ACjr functions normally. Any idea on why/how this might be?

 

[RayD]

I believe in one of Randy's articles he said that it will eventually disolve into the water. I had the same thing happen in my sump. It disolved.

 

[Liam]

CS
i'm not sure there is much you can do apart from tough it out.
I have never experienced it myself but i remember reading horror stories about it a long time back. I would guess water changes with a low alk/calcium content make up would be the way forward.
i do recall someone once recommending using vinegar to help offset the high alkalinity but i would do some research on that if i were you(try wet web media.com).
But if it has already precipitated out i would imagine it is too late at this point.I would do water changes,keep up the flow and hope most of the precipitate eventually goes back into solution.
Once you have made it through i would definitely recommend pulling all your pumps and giving them a vinegar soak.
HTH

 

[randoma]

It has already precipitated out (that's why the water was opaque..) The problem now is there's precipitate on *everything*. All the rocks..etc are bone white. The coral all seems fine so far. Water parameters are within reason, although Calcium was down to 200. KH dropped to 7dKH. I've been leaving them on the low side in hopes that the precipitate will dissolve faster, but I don't think it is helping.

I've been cleaning precipitate out of everything I can reach, but there's lots and lots... The protein skimmer's skimmate was white for the last two days. Although that's gone back to normal now that the water is clear again.

I really don't understand how the DC8 works - why would "off" be off for a light, but not for an AC-DC power supply?

 

[Aquadiva]

Also, this morning, I first tried to turn the pumps off through the 'Manual Control' on the ACjr, but they didn't turn off. Ultimately I pulled the plug on the pumps.... Unfortunately I didn't note, at the time, if the ACjr 'thought' the pumps were off.

I don't know what pumps you are using, but this thread over on RC may answer a few questions. I wound up putting a powerhead on the same plug as my aqualifter. Solved the problem.

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1113461&highlight=soft+start

 

[randoma]

Well, that certainly seems to answer THAT. Oddly, it worked fine for several months.

And, as mentioned multiple times in the RC thread, it *would* be nice is Neptune had saw fit to mention this somewhere.... [Apparently they do, as of September, mention this in the manual...]

I happen to have a socket expansion, so I can use that.

Thank you for the pointer, AquaDiva!

 

[RayD]

That is really good to know! Thanks Linda.

 

[vinny]

Thanks for the heads up Linda.

 

[randoma]

Everything seems to work fine on the socket expansion... I still don't understand why it worked fine for months and then suddenly decided that always on was a good idea. And I'm more than a little pissed that Neptune Systems doesn't seem to think that this is an important enough issue to list anywhere on their website. You'd think it might have made it into their FAQ or something....

I have to say, I really like the ACjr and ACII as products (I'm pretty sure I'd like an ACIII even better ) and I still think they're good solid products, but the customer service, the few times I've called has been decidedly lacking.

When I first got the ACjr, the entire company (which is, admittedly, probably only 1 or 2 people) was on vacation for two weeks and wasn't answering the phone. They've never replied to any emails I've sent them and Curt's phone support is, well, kind of curt and basically seems to be, "Well, our product is perfect, our documentation is perfect, it is clearly something you're doing wrong."

 

[jacqur]

It's probably late to chime in here, as you have probably done what you are going to do by now.

If it were me, after the water cleared I would blow all the precipitate off the rocks and corals with a turkey baster and just let it settle onto the sand bed. May take a couple attempts over a few days. Not being an uber chemist, but being arrogant enough to share my thoughts, I think it is unlikely all the precipitate will redisolve into the water column. I think the precipitate is akin (somewhat at least) to a coral skeleton or shell. Agreed probably not quite as stable, but still stable enough that it is unlikely to redisolve at typical tank water pH and chemistry. So if it were me, I would monitor my Alk and Ca closely over a few days and if levels don't return or begin increasing, I would start to either supplement or do water changes to restore them to their appropriate levels. Of course all this talk about supplement impurities lately may lend weight to a few large water changes as the way to go. I'd check Mg levels also.

Liam's comments about pump and valve maintenance are spot on as usual. If you haven't seen problems yet, you most likely will soon. I'd get on soaking components, especially venturi driven skimmers, as soon as it was convenient or you may get an unpleasant surprise down the road.

 

[randoma]

It is a bare bottom tank, so ultimately what I did was blow as much of the precipitate off of the coral, rocks as I could reach. Because of the way the tank is setup I can't really siphon the bottom, but I don't imagine that the precipitate is bothering anyone down there. The real problem is cleaning the glass...

Of course, the glass was pretty hard to clean before, but at least you used to be able to see through it...

The snails seem to be pretty effective at cleaning the precipitate off the glass, to my surprise.

Really though, the effect of the snowstorm was much less than I expected - as far as I can tell, the coral didn't even notice. I suspect that the two-three days of Ca/Kh swings after the fact were more stressful for the coral than the event itself.

Everything appears to be pretty stable now and I'm slowly bringing Ca back up to ~400 like it used to be..